CHAPTER VII.

CAPTAIN GEORGE F. LYON.

1824.

Narrative of a Voyage to Wager River, or Repulse Bay, in his Majesty's ship Griper, and thence to the Polar Coast of North America over land.

THE Griper was commanded, officered, and manned as under :

This incomplete voyage has only an indirect relation to the discovery of a north-west passage; its sole object having been to complete the land survey of the eastern portion of the north coast of North America, from the western shore of Melville Peninsula, as far as to Cape Turn-again, where Captain Franklin's late journey terminated. Being therefore connected with Arctic discovery, and

under the orders of an officer who commanded the second ship in Parry's second voyage, and being directed to proceed to the same portion of the Arctic Seas where he had already been with Parry, it is deemed right and proper to give to this expedition a place in the present narrative; and the more so, as it furnishes a beautiful and striking example of that obedience to orders, that calm and uncomplaining submission, accompanied with pious resignation to the Divine will in the hour of extreme danger, and when the awful moment of death is approaching—which, all so conspicuous in the character of British seamen, are exemplified in this voyage.

In order to effect the object in view, it was decided, as being the readiest and most simple mode of proceeding, to send a small vessel to Wager River, or Repulse Bay, under the orders of an intelligent officer, who, with a small party, should be instructed to cross the Melville Peninsula from one or other of the above-mentioned places, and traverse, by land, the western shore of that peninsula, and the northern shore of North America, to Point Turnagain. Captain Lyon having been promoted for his services, was selected by Lord Bathurst for this duty; and the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty having appointed the Griper, a gun-brig of 180 tons, to receive him, gave him directions to leave the ship, during

his land journey, in charge of the senior lieu.

tenant.

LIEUTENANT FRANCIS HARDING, after paying off the Griper, served three years as lieutenant of the Espoir, then in the Hecla, and was made Commander in 1830; he served in that rank in several ships till the year 1839, and was promoted to the rank of Captain in the general promotion of 1841.

LIEUTENANT PETER MANICO was made in 1814, served in the present voyage, and is still on the list of lieutenants.

JOHN TOм was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in 1826, where he still remains.

The Griper was considered a very useful vessel of her class; her strength was proved between the ice and the shore of Melville Island, and Captain Clavering had but arrived in England in her, at the end of the preceding year, from a voyage to Spitzbergen and Greenland. She was now, for her present voyage, examined and well strengthened; but on being stored, and amply provisioned, was found to be too deeply laden to cross the Atlantic alone, and therefore His Majesty's surveying vessel the Snap, commanded by Lieutenant Bullock, was ordered to receive a portion of them, and to accompany the Griper until she reached the ice, or arrived off Cape Chidley.

They sailed from Yarmouth Roads on the 19th June, and arrived at Stromness on the 30th.

the 3rd July," Captain Lyon says, "we hoisted in

two very powerful little ponies, procured at Kirkwall, the only two on the island, and which had been sent from Shetland to an Orkney laird; one was forty inches, the other thirty-eight in height." They also received a fat cow, and eight sheep, for the crew. The poor cow, it seems, refused to eat, and was therefore killed for present use; but the ponies proved better sailors, walked about the ship as familiarly as large dogs, and improved in their appearance daily. On examining the bags of pemmican, to their great mortification it was found that the fat had melted, and that the waterproof caoutchouc was oozing in a clammy state through the canvas.

The worst of all was that the sluggish Griper required to be towed by the Snap, till a strong breeze and a heavy swell for two days' continuance obliged the former to cast off; when she shipped so many tremendous seas that it became necessary to bring her to under storm-staysails, which was the more mortifying on observing her companion to be perfectly dry. In short, throughout the whole passage across the Atlantic the Griper was obliged to be towed by the Snap every second or third day, without which she could not have made any progress. On the 3rd of August, however, the two ships. made the ice, consisting of bergs among the floes; when, according to the Instructions, they began to remove the stores and provisions out of the Snap, by which the decks of the Griper were com

pletely crowded. Lyon says the gangways, forecastle, and abaft the mizen-mast, were filled with casks, hawsers, whale-lines, and stream-cables; the lower deck crowded with casks and other stores; not a place left vacant except the mess-tables of the men. Thus lumbered and brought down deep, her sailing qualities, bad enough before, were now expected to be much worse. It was found also by observation that for two days they had been exposed to the united force of the strong currents from Davis's and Hudson's Straits, towards the latter of which they were approaching. On the 4th of August the Snap parted company, to proceed in the further execution of her services.

On the 6th the Griper had approached Resolution Island, the sea covered with loose heavy ice, but the day described as lovely, and the sky brilliant; yet the brilliancy and loveliness which surrounded Captain Lyon were not sufficient to prevent him from "yielding to a sensation of loneliliness he had never experienced on the former voyage." "I felt most forcibly," he says, "the want of an accompanying ship, if not to help us, at least to break the death-like stillness of the scene." wonder at this feeling, when all the circumstances of his position are considered.

No

It must indeed be owned that there was a more than usual want of prudence in sending such a small and sluggish ship alone, through a naviga